Pulled Bullets

Matty308

Matty308

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Hey I just pulled about 150 75 grain Amax bullets with my Camlock puller and some have faint marks, and some a little heavier of a mark left on them. I have no use for them and am just curious if they are worth selling/will people buy them? If so what do you think they would be worth compared to new? The top picture is the bunch that have lighter marks, the bottom pic is the ones with larger marks on them (these are the worst of them, some are better). The ring around the point is from seating the bullet.

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What on earth are you doing to get such heavy compression rings like those on the nose???? Good grief. You have more than likely upset the integrity of those bullets. I'm not saying they will come apart but they certainly won't give you the accuracy they were originally capable of.

Likely, they would do fine on coyotes out to a couple of hundred yards but with an average 4 inch cross section they may not be accurate enough beyond that. Then again, they might be just fine. Stranger things have happened.

What sizing ball are you using on your decapping rod? Are you trying to crush the powder you're using in the case??? I have never seen compression rings like that, except on milsurp ammo where they heavily crimped the case mouths. I still have a few hundred of the cupronickel FMJ x 160 grain 6.5x55 surplus projectiles. Some of them had/have a deep compression ring about a third of the way from the open base of the bullet. The bullets without the compression ring will shoot into MOA when loaded over IMR 3031. The bullets with the crimp open up to two X MOA.

The small marks made from the puller clamping the bullets don't seem to effect much but I only use the clamp style puller on surplus bullets that are either glued in with sealant or heavily crimped. The inertia puller does a much better job

By the way, I never crimp any of my handloads. Some people swear by it though. The reason for the crimp is to hold the bullet in place on heavy recoiling rifles or in some cases, like on large diameter bullets, to help build up initial pressure for better powder combustion.
 
The Camlock puller is much better then the inertia, the only reason there are marks on them from pulling is because they were pushed in too far therefore not being able to grab on the side of the bullet. The ring on the nose from seating has had 0 effect on any of my other loads though, and produce sub moa groupings consistently.
 
I have the same problem with my RCBS bullet puller and collet. No matter how wide I open the collet, I can't get the bullet in deep enough to have the edge of the collet grab down near the case mouth. I have to apply enough pressure to the bullet in order to pull it that I always leave rings and wind up having to discard the bullet.

I don't crimp, and I'm seating to recommended OAL from the Hornady book. No idea how to fix it.
 
HeavyTread said:
I have the same problem with my RCBS bullet puller and collet. No matter how wide I open the collet, I can't get the bullet in deep enough to have the edge of the collet grab down near the case mouth. I have to apply enough pressure to the bullet in order to pull it that I always leave rings and wind up having to discard the bullet.

I don't crimp, and I'm seating to recommended OAL from the Hornady book. No idea how to fix it.
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Seat longer. Measure what oal your gun can take and use that. Cant say I have ever seated to what it says in the book.
 
Nicely contradicted yourself by saying the better camlock puller can't grab the side of the bullet thus leaves a mark. The inertia won't do that.

The camlock and inertia each has their own distinct advantage. I use the camlock when it can properly grab the side of the bullet; otherwise use the inertia hammer.
Matty308 said:
The Camlock puller is much better then the inertia, the only reason there are marks on them from pulling is because they were pushed in too far therefore not being able to grab on the side of the bullet. The ring on the nose from seating has had 0 effect on any of my other loads though, and produce sub moa groupings consistently.
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Those bullets don't look to be salvageable. I use the RCBS collect puller, and has never had that much damage when pulling pullets. I have shot many pulled bullets with good results, but they weren't damaged like yours.
 
Those are practically unsellable, but could still shoot well. It's surprising how well a bullet can shoot as long as the bottom part is not damaged. There's only one way to know for sure.
 
The only reason the Camlock puller damaged them is because I pushed them in too far, so it was trying to grab the bullet on the angled part instead of the side. I don't have anywhere to use an inertia puller as I live in an apartment building so I had no choice, plus it would have cost the same amount to go buy one compared to the price of the damaged bullets.
 
They would be OK for practice. Only 75 of them? Say 10 cents each. $7.50. Plus postage.
Why not just give them away?
 
hometownhero said:
Seat longer. Measure what oal your gun can take and use that. Cant say I have ever seated to what it says in the book.
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I won't say never, but certainly not in the past 20yrs or so.

stubblejumper said:
Those bullets don't look to be salvageable. I use the RCBS collect puller, and has never had that much damage when pulling pullets. I have shot many pulled bullets with good results, but they weren't damaged like yours.
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mbogo3 said:
The RCBS collet style leaves rings on the pulled military FMJ's . Calibers 7.62x39 + 7.62x54R
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Like stubblejumper, I have pulled many milsurp bullets with the RCBS collets. Where are these rings you speak of?
These are the last 150 or so that I have pulled from x39 and x54R, I just took the pic and had a good look. I have not loaded them for plinking, just yanked to replace for hunting. Can't seem to locate the damage...

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Fewer 123gn because they shoot awesome from my P-14! Throwing them at 3200FPS makes for ahard-hitting deer round, even at 400 yes
 
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Years ago I read an article in one of the shooting magazines where the author pulled some bullets with a pair of sidecutters and bent the bullets pretty bad. He then stuffed the bullets back into the case and shot them for accuracy. The buggered up noses shot pretty darn good for being so mangled.
It finally took grinding the bases crooked to really wreck accuracy.
I'd say put the bullets in a zip lock bag, label them, and store them away for when you think you might need them for a project.
Just make sure to label them. Maybe even a note inside the ziplock bag to remind you what happened to the bullets.
 
Well I guess the answer is fairly straight forward: I would not buy pulled bullets or bullets that included pulled bullets.
We're not that hard up here in Canada. We have bullet makers here.
Bill
 
Id say try to grab with less tension on the grip of the puller and you shouldnt get much or if any marks on pulled bullets, ive done many and havent had any that bad. I would say keep and try them out to see what they do, might not be any issue with using them again.
 
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